Ripple, and its XRP digital token, have weathered the recent bitcoin and cryptocurrency storm better than many others, bolstered by XRP’s huge gains earlier in the year.

But ripple, a common name for XRP, has still struggled amidst an almost year-long crypto rout that has wiped more than $700 billion from the total cryptocurrency market capitalization over the course of 2018—despite a raft of banks and financial services companies signing up to Ripple.

Now, Ripple’s chief technology officer David Schwartz has warned cryptocurrency and blockchain technology need to be improved before the dream of cryptocurrency mass adoption becomes a reality.

Ripple (XRP), bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies are thought of both as a medium of exchange and a store of value. However, the 2017 bitcoin (BTC) bull run, which saw the price of bitcoin explode from under $1,000 to almost $20,000 in fewer than 12 months, pulling most other major cryptocurrencies with it, meant the store of value aspect of many cryptocurrencies far exceeded their use as digital currencies.

The expectation (and subsequent disappointment) that adoption of cryptocurrencies as a tool of exchange would follow the bitcoin bull run has contributed to this year’s sell-off of digital tokens.

XRP is down some 80% from its peak as most major cryptocurrencies readjust after last year’s huge bull run. The ripple price surged to more than $3 last year, up from just $0.006 it began of 2017.

The ripple (XRP) sudden price rise in September failed to hold, with its value dropping again in November.

Some now fear that cryptocurrencies’ current problems of clunky exchanges, high risk and low regulation environments, and pricey fees could put people off for good, even if these problems are eventually solved.

“I don’t want the adoption to get ahead of the technology. It took a long time for the internet to get to the point where it was suitable for anybody to use it and you didn’t have to really understand the technology in great detail in order to be able to get it to work,” Schwartz told the Internet History Podcast.

According to eToro senior market analyst Mati Greenspan, bitcoin is in amidst a parabolic bull cycle and is on track to sustain its strong momentum over the medium to long term.

Since January, within less than six months, the bitcoin price has increased by nearly 100 percent against the U.S. dollar.

With a 98% gain year-to-date, bitcoin has outperformed most assets in 2019
(source: coinmarketcap.com)

Still, despite its large short-term rally, Greenspan noted that the dominant cryptocurrency is only at the start of a bigger cycle that may lead to new highs for the asset.

WHY INDUSTRY EXECUTIVES ARE SO OPTIMISTIC IN BITCOIN

In December 2018, the bitcoin price dropped to its lowest yearly point at $3,150. At the time, even though the industry had demonstrated significant progress in improving the infrastructure supporting the asset class, the sentiment around…

World’s third largest cryptocurrency Ripple (XRP) has appreciated up to 31-percent against the US dollar in just two days.

The XRP-to-dollar exchange rate Tuesday established an intraday high towards $0.405, up 25.05% since the market open on Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. The pair dropped as much as 5.05-percent ahead of the European session to neutralize its overbought sentiments, finding interim support at $0.384-level.

RIPPLE (XRP) SURGES 25% IN A DAY | SOURCE: TRADINGVIEW.COM, BITSTAMP

The sentiment was the same across the rest of the cryptocurrency index, with almost all the leading cryptocurrency posting surplus intraday gains. Bitcoin (BTC), for instance, extended its rally action to establish a new 2019 peak towards $8,836.19. Ethereum, EOS, and Bitcoin Cash too recorded double-digit percentage gains on a 24-hour adjusted timeframe.

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Facebook, the largest social media giant, made news after it announced that it would launch its own cryptocurrency, Facebook Coin. It was also rumoured that Facebook was looking out for VC firms to invest in their cryptocurrency project, with the targeted sum being “as much as $1 billion.”

Now, according to an official announcement, Facebook is going to lift its ban on cryptocurrency and blockchain related ads on its platform.

The facebook statement read :

“Starting 5 June, we will update our Prohibited Financial Products and Services Policy to no longer allow ads promoting contracts for difference [CFDs], complex financial products that are often associated with predatory behaviour. These products, due to their complexity, often mislead people.”

Facebook had implemented the ban on cryptocurrency ads and promotional campaigns related to blockchains and ICOs back in January 2018. It was believed that the ban was to tackle concerns…

Craig Wright, a man who, as WIRED wrote about back in 2016, either created Bitcoin or very badly wants someone to believe he did.

Now rumours are swirling through the Bitcoin world that Wright himself is poised to publicly claim—and possibly offer some sort of proof—that he really is Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin. If he does, he’ll have to convince a highly skeptical cryptography community for whom “proof” is a serious word, and one that requires cryptographic levels of certainty.

The suggestion is that Wright, an Australian cryptographer and security professional, has arranged to perform a demonstration for media in London sometime in the next week that’s intended to convince the world he’s bitcoin’s creator.1 Luckily for any legitimate claimant to the Satoshi throne—and for bitcoiners tired of the long succession of unproven candidates and speculation—there are some clear, almost incontrovertible ways for Satoshi Nakamoto to prove himself. When…